really and truly

This is my living room, taken at maybe 5:45 am. What IS all that shit?

two, no, on closer inspection SIX barbies

broken box + various pieces to the girls’ favorite board game which is now pretty much garbage though I did see Willow with it the other day playing a game with Lego guys and the game board (not pictured here)

dirty socks

shoes

BIN FOR TOY STORAGE hahahaha

pencil

backpack

homework on couch

DVD from library

some kind of flyer for some kinda kid thing

books

blanket

plastic dog

at least one remote control

I walk in and see that and I want to kick a hole in the wall. Messes like that make me so cranky. It’s not that time-consuming to get it put up, really, but we didn’t get to it last night because we had other things to do. Like have long discussions about proper language usage (you can’t call a parental figure an asshole or a bastard — even if you firmly believe with all your sincere and angsty heart that they are acting like one) that left me aching for the days when cookies! and juice! and maybe A BALLOON could turn around a shitty family moment in nothing flat.

Things got worse tonight before they got better. But they did get better. The living room even got cleaned up and then messed up again, and tomorrow it will look pretty much like it did today, but with a slightly different cast of characters splayed underfoot.

I’ll miss that someday, won’t I? Someday I will wake up to a quiet house and I’ll look at my fabulously stripey-painted, clean hardwood living room floor and it will make me cry. There is just no pleasing me.

That looks like my living room! Only we don’t have as many small things because Suzi would swallow and choke on them. It makes me want to scream when I wake up to this sort of mess because there are other things we need to do, like paint, and put up curtains, and vacuum. But who the heck could vacuum when the floor is covered in stuff? And as I’m walking around picking everything up, Suzi is crawling behind me pulling it back out again. It’s like trying to sweep sand off the beach.

Hey Jen…coming from the perspective of one who no longer wakes up to messes quite like the ones kids can create. When your children are grown you will have odd moments of hard memory that almost knock you sideways emotionally with the clarity of moments past, but then…then you know that it was right then and now it is just as right…only different. And the peace that comes with age is rather delicious! Something to look forward to sweetie, not something to fear. I promise.